How Chappell Roan’s “Casual” Guided Me Away from Unfulfilling Connections
Casual by Chappell Roan helped me ditch – “Sadie,” I tell him. “I’d name our daughter Sadie. Or perhaps Leo for a boy.” We’ve been talking on the phone for two and a half hours, discussing imaginary children with someone who has clearly stated he doesn’t want a relationship. Yet simultaneously, he mentions things like: “I told my mum about you. She wants to meet you.” When he says these things, I find myself dreaming – in the words of a particular song – about us a year from now: perhaps we’ll share an apartment, and he’d introduce me to his friends at the pier?
This is the fantasy that Chappell Roan captures in her 2022 hit “Casual.” My own vision differs slightly: instead of a pier there’s an apartment (where the now-familiar sound of his key in the door still brings excitement), and his friends remark things like: “I’ve never seen him behave this way with anyone else.” But most importantly, in this imagined scenario, we’ve committed to one another.
A Song Heard in Different Circumstances
The first time I encountered “Casual,” I was already in a committed relationship. I listened to it repeatedly, singing along loudly in the bedroom I shared with my boyfriend to the line: “Knee deep in the passenger seat, and you’re eating me out.” Roan had been nervous about that particular lyric – “it’s crass,” she explained – but fans embraced it wholeheartedly.
I also appreciated the song’s sense of unrequited longing, though I couldn’t truly connect with it at that moment. Not yet.
Two years later, I found myself single again and returning to dating applications, searching for genuine connection in what felt like the hellscape of contemporary romance. I kept discovering myself caught in confusingly ambiguous situations. I dated individuals who performed actions suggesting commitment: they’d offer me a toothbrush, which I’d leave at their place, and I’d keep my garments in their drawers. We’d pretend to be a couple – visiting garden centres on lazy Saturday mornings and exchanging our favourite books to read.
The Fantasy vs. Reality
They’d mention how well I’d get along with their sister. It was this fantasy that made everything so intoxicating – picturing what could be rather than what actually was. For months, I rode a dopamine rollercoaster that climbed whenever the fantasy was nourished, but then plummeted when reality arrived – when they’d take three weeks to respond, accidentally send me a nude intended for someone else, or upload a photograph to their Instagram with their arm around another girl.
I don’t believe their ambiguity was deliberate or malicious: we’re all simply craving connection, and it was easy for me to become carried away by the notion that this could be The One.
But now, in my mid-30s, the fear of wasting my time on someone who would never commit began growing louder with each passing birthday. I had found myself knee-deep in another undefined romance, and this time it was long-distance. “Do you really want to wake up in two years and discover you’re still in a long-distance situationship with someone who’s unwilling to commit?” my sister asked. I didn’t think I did, but I wasn’t entirely certain. Maybe I was comfortable with that. I’d found chemistry and connection, and isn’t that what we’re all ultimately searching for? Why did I need commitment to feel safe and secure?
A New Perspective
That night, on my walk home, “Casual” began playing in my headphones. I heard the song for what felt like the first time. As Roan sang “I hate that I let this drag on so long, now I hate myself. Hate that I let this drag on so long, you can go to hell,” I heard the anger, the humiliation, the self-abandonment – and realised I’d buried those same emotions within me.
“I hate that I let this drag on so long, now I hate myself. Hate that I let this drag on so long, you can go to hell”
I understood that, by falling in love with the possibility of someone, I’d forgotten to pay attention to the reality of who they were. I’d responded to their gestures and ignored their words. Somewhere along the way, I’d lost sight of what I actually wanted.
The next day, I asked my latest “situationship” the question: would this ever become something more? That relationship ended because of that conversation, and I haven’t been in one since. Now, when I’m dating someone and they say “We’re not together,” I listen to them – rather than getting swept up in some fantastical future involving Sadie, Leo and a house in the country.
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